In grief, language eludes, shifts, breaks down, betrays. Figment is an attempt to articulate the inarticulable, to glean meaning from scraps of language, and to see clearly that which exists just out of view. Through fragments and the abecedarian form, Leila Chatti parses the experience of pregnancy loss and the anguish of failed creation. Figment is a work of accumulation— words exist individually like dots of paint, which, when observed at a distance, reveal the larger subject.